Just lately I seem to be spending far too long either thinking about sleep or talking about sleep. More to the point what I have done so wrong? How have I ended up with two children who don’t sleep through? J can sleep though, he can sleep for 12 hours but he likes to wake up once a night –if Daddy goes to him (which only happens at weekends) then he goes back to bed. When I go to him he holds me hostage, by threatening to scream the house down if I leave the room. Now I have no problems with leaving him to scream and kick up a stink because after ten minutes max he will go back to sleep. However I’m very reluctant to allow it to happen for the fear he will wake R and then I will be dealing with them both awake.
I can’t remember the last time I slept for a full night, by the time J was sleeping through I was pregnant and having to make loo stops in the night. So it’s possible that it’s been over two years since I had a decent stretch of sleep.
R doesn’t need milk during the night, and he’s proved that a few times – however it’s too easy to offer him boob and know the will fall back to sleep. While co-sleeping of course. When he woke Saturday night I sent him down stairs to his daddy and the pair of them slept there. So even though I woke a dozen times because of my cold, it was heavenly to just be able to roll over and go back to sleep. Not attempt a dummy search, while holding a baby and trying to keep him quiet so he doesn’t wake his brother.
R won’t sleep for more than three hours at a time; sometimes he will wake for 5 minutes other times 2 hours. It’s wearing me down and with the imminent return to work I need to try and fix it. I need a plan, I need to stick to it – however I really don’t know what to do. There are so many types of sleep training but most of them seem to involve leaving the room. I don’t want to leave my room at 3am in the morning. If we are doing control crying, where do I go while he’s crying in my bedroom? How the hell does it work? Has anyone done any kind of sleep training while sharing the room with their baby? Or have you just had to grin and bear it?
Eventually he is going in with J, and it’s very tempting to just move him. Face the fact that I’m going to have complete and utter hell for a few weeks but solve the problem eventually. It seems mean to disturb J though with R’s night wakening’s though. I’ll have horrible nights and horrible days, as lack of sleep makes for a very grumpy toddler. HELP!
I wish I could give you any kind of advice :( I can just offer to cross my fingers for you that Riley will sleep longer and wake less and less during the night and that Joshua starts to sleep thru more often too.
ReplyDelete*coughs* and you slept thru last year for a few days in Manchester *coughs* :p might not count cause Joshua wasnt with ya :p